''94 Diskont'' (stylised as ''94diskont.'') is the fourth album by German

electronic music Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroac ...

group

Oval An oval () is a closed curve in a plane which resembles the outline of an egg. The term is not very specific, but in some areas (projective geometry, technical drawing, etc.) it is given a more precise definition, which may include either one or ...

. It was released in 1995 via

Mille Plateaux ''A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia'' (french: link=no, Mille plateaux) is a 1980 book by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and the French psychoanalyst Félix Guattari. It is the second and final volume of their collaborativ ...

in Europe and in 1996 by

Thrill Jockey Thrill Jockey is an American independent record label established by former Atlantic Records A&R representative Bettina Richards and based in Chicago. History Richards started the label in 1992 with $35,000 of family and personal capital, while ...

in the United States. It was the final Oval release to feature Sebastian Oschatz and Frank Metzger. It has received critical acclaim.

Background

Oval received both praise and controversy for its styling methods, such as literally deconstructing music and digital audio by using exacto knives, paint, and tape to damage the surfaces of compact discs, only to stitch the sound back together in loops of melody punctuated by the disc's physical skips. On its initial release, '' Select'' noted in their review that Oval "sound unlike any other combo" on ''94 Diskont''. The review went on to note that group have been described in desperation as

techno Techno is a genre of electronic dance music (EDM) which is generally produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempo often varying between 120 and 150 beats per minute (bpm). The central rhythm is typically in common time (4/4) and often ch ...

and critiqued this reference stating "try dancing to the sort of erratic pulsing and hiccuping that comes over like the read-out from a dying alien's electrocardiograph". ''94 Diskont'' was released as a companion piece to Oval's previous album, ''

Systemisch Systemisch is a 1994 album by the German glitch group Oval. It was released in 1994 by Mille Plateaux. Breaking away from the instrumental format of previous work, the album used sound taken from deliberately damaged CDs to combine an experiment ...

''. The album's centerpiece is "Do While," a 24-minute track originally composed for the group's 8-channel, 128-speaker modular sound installation named Wohnton (translates into home tone) in a stereo mixdown. The installation was shown throughout Europe between 1994 and 1996 on various occasions, ranging from art exhibitions to

rave A rave (from the verb: '' to rave'') is a dance party at a warehouse, club, or other public or private venue, typically featuring performances by DJs playing electronic dance music. The style is most associated with the early 1990s dance mus ...

s. A radio edit of the song, "Do While ⌘X", is also included on the album. The US pressing by Thrill Jockey adds two additional songs and, on vinyl, moves "Do While ⌘X" up in the running order to appear directly after "Do While", instead of closing the album. Both US and international

vinyl Vinyl may refer to: Chemistry * Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a particular vinyl polymer * Vinyl cation, a type of carbocation * Vinyl group, a broad class of organic molecules in chemistry * Vinyl polymer, a group of polymers derived from vinyl m ...

versions of the album came with a

remix A remix (or reorchestration) is a piece of media which has been altered or contorted from its original state by adding, removing, or changing pieces of the item. A song, piece of artwork, book, video, poem, or photograph can all be remixes. The o ...

LP that contains remixes by

Mouse on Mars Mouse on Mars is a German electronic music duo formed in 1993 by Jan St. Werner and Andi Toma. Their music is a blend of electronic genres including IDM, dub, krautrock, breakbeat and ambient, featuring heavy use of organic analog synth and ...

, Scanner,

Cristian Vogel Cristian Vogel (born 1972) is an Chilean experimental electronic musician. Biography Vogel was born in Chile and moved to England in the early 1980s with his family, fleeing from the government of Augusto Pinochet. Vogel first began working with ...

, and Jim O'Rourke.

Reviews and influence

Dave Morrison of '' Select'' gave the album a four out of five rating, first mentioning the group's unorthodox method of obtaining the sounds on the album, then noting that "this out-on-a-limb approach wouldn't mean a thing if the results weren't so brilliant." ''

The Wire ''The Wire'' is an American Crime film, crime drama Television show, television series created and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon. The series was broadcast by the cable network HBO in the United States. ''The ...

'' placed the album at number five on its 1995 of top albums of the year. Ben Tausig of

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

awarded the album five stars and stated, "''94 Diskont'' is undoubtedly a standout in the field of electronically advanced,

glitch A glitch is a short-lived fault in a system, such as a transient fault that corrects itself, making it difficult to troubleshoot. The term is particularly common in the computing and electronics industries, in circuit bending, as well as among ...

-heavy music." In their 1998 list of "100 Records That Set the World on Fire (While No One Was Listening)", ''

'' wrote of the album: "From nothing but digital detritus, Oval construct a resonant holism of pure crystalline beauty. The balance of this disc is given over to brief excursions into textural exposition, pushing back the boundaries of sound as music." In a 2003 feature, the

webzine An online magazine is a magazine published on the Internet, through bulletin board systems and other forms of public computer networks. One of the first magazines to convert from a print magazine format to being online only was the computer magaz ...

Pitchfork A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to th ...

'' placed ''94 Diskont'' at number 47 on its list of the top 100 albums of the 1990s. Mark Richardson of ''Pitchfork'' declared, "Sounds appear as multi-layer holograms, with both sources and ghosted copies simultaneously vying for attention, a piece of sonic trickery used to create some of the most serene and aquatic music of the '90s." Richardson would later state in a 2016 piece that ''94 Diskont'' "was the first sound of a new future". In 2016, ''Pitchfork'' named ''94 Diskont'' the seventh best ambient album of all time.

Track listing

Notes and references

External links

''94 Diskont''
at

{{Authority control 1995 albums Oval (musical project) albums Thrill Jockey albums Mille Plateaux (record label) albums